


The Walk

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [56]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, MSR, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:36:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4820780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	The Walk

_“Ask [the general] to make himself available. Tell him that is our protocol. In the meantime, we’d like to finish up with Lieutenant Colonel Stans. You never know when he might try to kill himself again. Let’s finish this, Mulder.”_

Mulder was not a religious man, but hand to God, that was the hottest thing he had seen in a while: his partner, full of professional self-righteousness, dressing down an Army captain, who also happened to be a woman. Mulder wasn’t necessarily _proud_ of his reaction to this display but, well, he was only human.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected. Scully would only tolerate so much small town casual sexism from local law enforcement, and they had just been through several cases in a row where she’d had to bear it. This situation, on the other hand, involved a different flavor of resistance, one which she had absolutely no qualms about challenging. This was a turf war between the military and the justice department, and Scully would suffer no fools trying to posture and impede their investigation. Mulder might have felt sorry for the captain if he weren't so busy focusing on keeping certain other feelings under control.

He dragged his attention back to the matter at hand, much to his chagrin. Scully had asked Stans to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the house fire, and the lieutenant colonel was shakily telling the whole horrible story. It would have been hard to listen to even if Mulder didn’t have a traumatic history with fire; as it was, his skin crawled, and he could barely keep from interrupting the man to say they’d heard enough, thank you very much. When spots started to swim in his vision, he set his features in the bland, professional mask of an impartial investigator and allowed himself the small indulgence of mentally stepping back from the conversation, just a little. It was an indulgence he could only take because he knew Scully would remain fully attentive, and he thanked his lucky stars for a partner on whom he could rely so completely.

Hell, she was on such a roll today he could have probably stayed home, except for the small detail that she didn’t believe this case had anything other than a tangible, corporeal explanation.

Reminded of his suspicions, he withdrew another of the unexposed dental x-ray films from his pocket and took an unobtrusive stroll around the room, only half an ear on the tragic conclusion of Stans’s story. If he was right about the involvement of a spectral entity, physical evidence would be in short supply for this case, so he would need everything he could manage to scrape together in order to convince his skeptical partner.

His no-nonsense, capable, confident, skeptical albeit _brilliant_ partner, whose skirt suit just happened to be perfectly accentuating her rather outstanding--

“Mulder, did you have any more questions for Lieutenant Colonel Stans before we move on?”

_Head in the game, man._ He cleared his throat.

“Uh, yeah. Lieutenant Colonel, I wonder if you might be able to walk us through the specifics of how you’ve been prevented from carrying out your suicide plans. Starting with the first attempt?”


End file.
